


Truth

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fingering, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, More angst, Pre-Slash, Suggested Prostitution, caretaker!sam, hurt!Dean, suggested underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4926364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam was never supposed to find out how Dean made their extra cash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morgan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan/gifts), [Linden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/gifts).



> Thanks to Linden for the idea because young Dean has occasionally turned to hooking to make ends meet in her stories which led me to ask the question, 'what if Sammy DID find out?'
> 
> And Morgan, well...because my Sam went strangely dark on me and my ending was not nearly the usual happy I'm known for, and I think you're to blame :)

‘Pretty little bitch.’

Dean forced himself to stay still beneath the thumb that glided down his jaw, only turned his head into the pillow and breathed out in muted relief when the shadow and heat of the body above him moved off to rummage the inside pocket of a suit coat hung carefully across the back of the chair by the window. A moment later a stack of neatly folded bills landed on the mattress by Dean’s elbow. He felt fingertips brush across his shoulder blade, trail down the dip of his spine to the cleft of his ass where they trembled for a moment before pulling away.

‘Worth every penny,’ came the rough whisper beside his ear. ‘And then some.’

Dean held himself still, like a hunted animal in the tall grass evading a bird of prey, until he felt the press of dry lips at the juncture of his neck and shoulder and then the heat and mass and weight of his benefactor leave the room, moving across the floor in long, steady strides to the bathroom where the shower came on a moment later.

This wasn’t how these things usually went, but it was one of those fortuitous moments that Dean and his Mark had been looking for the same thing for two different reasons. 

The bars weren’t for crap in this half-horse town and even if he could find a decent pool table to hustle, no one had enough spare cash to make it worth his while. There wasn’t a job to be had in the three weeks he and Sam had been stranded here. He hadn’t even been able to swing a hammer for anyone as a handyman for an hour or so. It didn’t help that winter was setting in with a vengeance, so any outside work was pretty much out of the question, and most people were a lot more leery of letting a drifter fix-it man into their house. Even ones that came in packages as pretty as Dean. 

So, when he’d used the last of his spare change and pocket lint to buy himself and Sam coffee and one of those protein bar things Sam was so fond of this morning before he’d dropped the kid at school (and he wouldn’t even have gotten that much if the pretty little redhead behind the counter hadn’t been charmed by the fresh-faced grin he gave her with just a hint of a sparkle in his green eyes and knocked off the price of Sam’s coffee), he’d decided it was time to take more…drastic measures.

He’d learned early that you didn’t pick up a local Mark. It kind of followed with the rule of, ‘don’t piss where you sleep.' Someone recognized you later, or things didn’t go quite the way you intended, it could wind up very bad all around. That’s why Dean headed for the motels out toward the highway, sat in the lot for about thirty minutes after he’d politely queried the pretty desk clerk if a Mr. Brannigan had checked in yet and been told ‘no,’ so he would just wait for a little bit if she didn’t mind, and no of course she didn’t since he was leaning against the awning column outside with his hips canted just so, plainly on display, and casually glancing at his watch every few minutes to keep up the ruse; then met the eyes of a likely looking businessman, in a charcoal pinstripe suit with a garment bag slung over his shoulder, for just the right length of time that broadcast the message, ‘it’s on offer if you want it.’

Dean wasn’t picky or prejudiced. If you could pay, you got his services. This guy, though, was a little more upscale than his usual, had started having engine trouble with his rental a few miles up the highway that the local garage couldn’t have repaired until morning, or he wouldn’t be getting a room in this slightly run down, three steps below his normal Holiday-Inn-fare motel. The guy was clean cut, obviously a jet-setter with a more career than family mindset, and would like his hookups clean and discreet and maybe a touch more personal than what Dean would normally offer. Though he was very good at pleasing people, playing them, too. So, it was no surprise that Dean asked top dollar and the guy accepted without so much as a blink, but he wanted a little more, something Dean didn’t normally give people, hadn’t given anyone…not since that one time.

Dean rolled onto his back, flinching a little at the way his hip popped and the swath of bruises that were already starting to come in. The guy hadn’t been cruel. Actually kind of the opposite, almost possessively reverent which was kind of just as scary. But the man obviously had other much more physical hobbies besides whatever took him around the country in a thousand dollar suit, something along the lines of illicit fighting maybe, or some other sport that was full body contact, required stamina and endurance and had very few if any rules.

He’d been going for the gold, that was for damn sure, Dean thought as he sat up slowly, gingerly, already feeling the soreness in his ass leeching up inside him, making his every move an effort not to moan. He hadn’t been used this hard in…a really long time. He reached out and palmed the stack of bills on the mattress. Payment as agreed and even a bit of a bonus it looked like. He smirked sourly and used a corner of the scratchy sheets to clean himself up. Rough or not, it wasn’t like the guy hadn’t made him come, that was part of the deal. The guy obviously wanted control, but he also wanted full satisfaction for his partner as well. Dean didn’t normally get off on his Marks, unless he got the rare one that actually wanted to blow him, but his dick had been right on board this time, even if his ass was going to feel it for the next week or more. 

He snagged his jeans from the floor, stuffed the bills safely into his wallet, and got dressed. That was part and parcel to the deal, too. No long, lingering conversations, cuddling, or good-byes, and for fuck sake don’t still be there when the guy got out of the shower. He glanced at the clock. It was nearly three. He had just enough time to make it to the grocery store before he picked Sam up at school.

He pulled on his jacket, scanned the room again, because you didn’t ever leave any of yourself behind if it could be avoided, and then closed the door quietly behind himself on the way out.

——

‘You’re late,’ Sam bitched as he slid into the passenger seat. 

‘Yeah, well, I thought you might like to eat tonight,’ Dean said.

Sam tossed a glance into the back where three bags of groceries were near to overflowing in the seat. He arrowed a stern look at Dean which Dean very pointedly ignored as he pulled out into the non-existent afternoon traffic and turned them toward their ramshackle rental on the edge of town. 

Sam wasn’t stupid. He’d gotten gas station coffee and a protein bar for breakfast, and a peanut butter sandwich, with only about enough peanut butter on it to lure a small mouse, for his lunch. He knew their funds, such as they had been, had run out and that Dean had done something in the hours Sam had been exercising his brain cells in his Chemistry and Pre-Calc classes to make them some more cash. 

‘Do I even want to know?’ he asked tiredly.

‘Nope,’ Dean said, keeping his eyes front, but he could feel his brother’s heavy gaze on him, examining him for bruises, damage that he might not be able to see under clothing, gauging the stiffness with which Dean was holding himself in the seat, leaning a little against his door to take the pressure off…things. Because Sam knew as well as Dean how worthless a hustle was in this town, and he also knew Dean would occasionally take a fight to win some cash, though that was just about as unlikely here, too. Let the kid assume, though. It was better than the truth.

 The truth was something Dean had managed to keep from Sam for the last five years, and he had no intentions of him finding out now. He wasn’t proud of what he did, but he did what was necessary because too often John left them with too little to get by for the days, weeks, sometimes months of delay in his return from some hunt or other. Dean wondered occasionally if John got out there on his own and got lost in the job so deep, got pulled so far down inside his own guilt and need for vengeance, that he just forgot for a little while that he had two sons waiting for him. It wasn’t John’s fault, not really, and Dean didn’t blame him. Not really. John had suffered more than any other human being alive, Dean suspected, had more taken from him than any average man could survive, and it had left him broken, scarred in deep places that John kept protected with rough words, hard glances, and whisky.

And Dean…well, Dean had his own set of scars to deal with, but his priority was Sam, had always been Sam, even before John had looked him hard in the eye the very first time he’d left both his boys behind in a crap motel room with a fritzy heater in late October in Wisconsin and put out a stern finger and said, ‘look after your brother.’ It was a tenant of Dean’s existence by then already, and he would always do whatever it took…whatever it took, to take care of Sammy. 

'Dean...'

'Leave it alone, Sam.'

Sam scowled and faced forward in the seat again, hunched in and small like only he could do at nearly six feet, and fiddled with the strap of his backpack in the floor between his feet while he pretended not to watch his brother from beneath his dark lashes for the five mile drive home. 

——

Dean remembered to move carefully when he got out of the car, to not move too fast, to straighten up slowly, to keep his gait measured as he carried two of the bags of groceries into the house, leaving the last one for Sam, so that he didn't give himself away. His lips were chewed up but good in his efforts not to hiss or moan at some twinge, or sting, or stab. He was accustomed to pain. He'd broken skin, broken bone, pulled and torn muscles, taken hits to the head that a pro retired football player couldn't boast of, but he hadn't hurt like this in a very long time. 

This was inside him. This was bruised organs and abraded flesh and being worked until he was too dry and stretched until he thought he'd tear apart. This was a constant aching pain that snuck up on him just about the time he thought it was starting to lessen and stabbed at him viciously, or sent a bloom of searing heat through his innards that nearly made him gasp. It wasn't just the physical pain either. There was shame and guilt riding him, anger too; anger that he'd been put in a position to even have to do this, and that made his heart hurt. More because he knew he should never complain about doing anything that would keep Sam safe, keep him fed, keep him warm and clothed and taken care of. But. Dammit! Sometimes it was just too much. 

Dean slid the bags onto the counter and turned toward the hall and the bedroom and the bathroom before Sam even got in the front door. 'You're on grocery duty,' he called as he closed the bedroom door behind him and started stripping. 

He still smelled like sex. He still smelled like that guy. It was really a wonder Sam hadn't already picked up on it, but then, near as Dean could tell, the kid was still a virgin, so the only smell he knew was his own semen when he jacked off in the shower or over the edge of the bed in the middle of the night with his face turned to the wall when he thought Dean was asleep. 

By the time he'd drained the hot water tank and let the steam soak into the surface bruises and the rush of pelting spray rinse him clean of the guy's jizz and his scent and gingerly put his fingers up inside himself in an attempt, that elicited a full on whine of pain, to assess any real damage, Sam was banging on the bathroom door.

'Hold your damn horses,' Dean grumbled. He slapped off the faucet and grabbed a towel, slung it roughly around his waist and yanked the door open. 'Jesus, Sam, can a guy not even take a shower in peace? What? Is the damn salad mix I got you the wrong kind or somethin'?'

Sam colored fiercely and ducked his head. 'Sorry. I just. Uh, thanks, by the way. For the salad.' He looked up, meeting Dean's eye warily, and Dean would have given a good chunk of what he'd earned this afternoon to know what had put that look there all of a sudden. 'I just wanted to know if there was anything you wanted me to start for dinner.' 

Dean stood there, dripping on the tile for a moment, watching his little brother’s cheeks flush a darker shade of crimson, and his eyes go slightly wide and his breath hitch as his gaze traveled down Dean’s chest to his hips where the line of finger shaped bruises were peeking above the edge of the towel. There were larger ones, too, on the softer flesh of his ass and his groin where the heel of the guy’s big palms had dug in and squeezed hard. 

‘Dean, what are…?’ Sam’s voice was quavering. His eyes were darkening, and Dean could feel a new, familiar thickness in the air that meant something was building in Sam’s chest; the littering of bruises was taking shape with something else inside Sam's too-smart-for-his-own-good brain and raising his ire. His eyes narrowed, lips thinning. ‘There was—was blood, Dean. On your boxers.’ The something taking shape started to gel, solidified at lightning speed and lit a spark in Sam’s eyes, deep and dangerous. ‘Dean. What did you do?’

Dean clamped a hand around Sam’s bicep, holding him, grounding him. The towel slipped a little in his other hand and Sam made a strange, choked off sound in the back of his throat at the sight of even more, deeper, larger bruises on his brother’s fair skin.

‘Sam, it’s fine. I’m fine. Okay? Just. Forget about it.’

‘Forget about it?’ Sam’s voice was falsely calm, the calm that the certifiably insane were so good at mimicking. ‘Forget about it.’ He mulled this over for a second before his eyes flashed and he spit out, ‘How the hell do I forget about it! Did someone…did he…? Rape you?’

Dean reared back a little at that. ‘Fuck, no!’ He gave Sam a little shake. ‘You think I’d let anyone do that to me, Sam? You know better.’

That took Sam’s fury down a notch, turned it around on itself and transmuted it into something closer to fear and worry. ‘But then how…?’ 

The realization was sharp and shattering and Dean felt the moment it hit in the live-wire tension that zinged through Sam’s body, down his arm where Dean still held him, and Dean felt a dark, churning pit open at the bottom of his stomach and start to suck him in. It made him feel a little sick.

Sam moved his mouth uselessly around nothing but shock for a moment as his eyes started filling with tears. ‘You…let him,’ he whispered. ‘That’s how you got more money.’

‘Sammy. Just. Please?’ Dean wasn’t sure what he was asking. For Sam to forget it? Yeah, sure. Not likely, though. For him just to walk out of the room and let it go, to somehow not let this realization sully his larger-than-life view of the big brother he had all but worshipped the last fifteen years of his life? Definitely. But just as unlikely. 

His chest ached. It ached for Sam because Dean knew what it was like to see your idols fall. He remembered huddling in the downstairs hallway, peeking in through the crack of the bathroom door, while Bobby held John’s head while he threw up a fifth of whisky, and God knew what else, less than a year after Mary’s death. He remembered clinging to the banister spindles with thin, white knuckled fingers as Bobby dragged John’s arm over his shoulders and hauled him up the stairs afterward to put him to bed for the next fifteen hours. He remembered how he could never see his father through the same narrow lens of perfection anymore after that and the fear and uncertainty that shook his young world down to its very foundations, creating permanent cracks that could never be repaired. 

John had already been wrecked by the time Sam was old enough to form any memories of him, so Dean had taken it upon himself, however unconsciously, to be the one that Sam looked up to, the certainty in his every waking moment, as sure as the rising and setting of the sun. It had worked for a while.

Until now. 

Dean dropped his hand from Sam's arm, took a step back, waited for the inevitable.

'…Dean?' 

Sam's face was crumpling in slow motion, wet eyes overflowing, bottom lip quivering until he set his teeth into it hard enough to turn the skin white. Dean held tight against a flinch. Disgust would have been easier to deal with. This… This was something Dean didn't recognize. The darkness in his little brother's gaze was a turbulent jumble of emotion that Dean could neither grasp nor translate.

He yanked the towel up tight around his waist and pushed past Sam into the room. 

'Dean—'

'Sammy, would you just—?'

'How long?' Sam asked, voice surprisingly steady despite his disintegrating expression. Dean froze in reaching for a fresh pair of boxers, refused to turn around. 'How long, Dean?'

Dean sighed, shoulders sagging. He still did not turn around. He couldn't bring himself to do it. If he stayed facing away, just for another moment, he could pretend for just that much longer that Sam would still be able to look at him the same way he had five minutes ago.

'Does it matter, Sam?'

There was silence for a long, long minute, and then the soft tickle of silken hair against his still damp skin as Sam bent his forehead to rub and rest at the top of Dean's spine. Dean felt his warm, erratic breaths puffing along his backbone, sending little shivers up and down through his muscles. Then he felt Sam's hands, hesitant, slow, and so cautious, palms flattening with infinite care against Dean's shoulder blades, just touching, then pressing lightly, more firmly, until Dean felt the pressure of them like Sam was trying to mold his hands to the shape of his brother's back and keep them there forever.

'Sam…'

'Lay down,' Sam said quietly.

Dean's gut clenched at the rough velvet in Sam's tone, something dark and catching dragged at Dean's heart and set his stomach churning, but in a good way. In the way it felt to look over the edge of the steepest incline on a roller coaster and imagine the sudden plunge in the second before it actually happened. The giddy moment of heady disbelief before gravity took over. Sam smoothed his palms down Dean's back, calluses from target practice with his Taurus rasped across skin that was rarely touched and set the nerve endings there all alight with a feeling Dean knew was wrong— _littlebrotherbadwrong_ —but that his body accepted as easily and necessarily as his lungs did air— _Sammyrightsafelove_.

Sam gave him a little push. 'Lay down. On the bed.'

Dean moved to the bed, put a knee on the mattress, in a daze that Sam was still here, in the room with him. Touching him. Sam should be running. Sam should hate him. Sam should never want to touch something as sullied and broken as Dean is. Behind him, Sam went into the bathroom where Dean could hear him rummage for a minute in their cabinet and then in the bag that held most of their first aid stuff. Dean was still standing when he came back with a tube of ointment in one hand and a jar of Arnica salve in the other. He wouldn't look Dean in the eye but came to stand beside him, jutted his chin toward the bed.

'I said, lay down.'

Dean obeyed this time, slowly, keeping his little brother in the corner of his eye as he carefully laid himself out with a minimum of cursing and flinching at deepening aches and pains. Sam stayed where he was for a minute, by the bed, just looking down at his brother, gaze traveling up and down his body until Dean could feel a warm blush creep across his skin. He shivered and pretended it had nothing to do with his brother's eyes roving over him like he meant to memorize every jut of bone and taut stretch of muscle. Any other time, Dean would say something caustic to get Sam's attention, something teasing or taunting to break the tension, but he had no words for the look in Sam's eyes. They'd been naked in front of each other a hundred times, a thousand times, in their lives, but Dean had never felt so stripped bare before as he did now waiting for Sam to move. Waiting under the weight of his hungry gaze.

Dean's spine went rigid under that realization.

Hunger. That's what it was in Sam's eyes. Hunger. Possession. _Mine_ , his eyes said.

Sam settled a knee beside Dean's hip and let his weight down slowly, easing onto the mattress. He reached out a hand and stroked it lightly over Dean's shoulders, down the slope of his ribs, along the curve of his back, until he reached the towel and gripped it and pulled it down and away.

Dean sucked in a breath, arms clenching tight around the pillow beneath his cheek. 'Sam. Don't.'

The words came out sounding suspiciously like a plea instead of a warning.

Sam's hand retracted and Dean heard the tinny sound of the lid being unscrewed on the jar of salve. Then his hand was back, sure and familiar this time in the way it smoothed the balm over his skin, rubbing it in with gentle circular motions, across his lower back and over his hipbones, hesitating just a little before traveling over the curve of his buttocks and down the long, quivering muscles of his thighs. Dean knew he should not want to be touched. After this afternoon, the last thing he should want is hands on his body, and the very last thing he should want is his brother's hands, but his body disagreed. A rich, syrupy warmth was already pooling at the base of his spine, where Sam was concentrating his efforts, soothing him from the inside out, deadening the ache within. 

Sam leaned away, set the jar aside, and Dean sighed, wanting nothing more than for Sam to pull a blanket over him and let him sleep, maybe curl up beside him to keep him warm as the temperature dropped outside and the wind drafted through the poorly sealed window in their bedroom. But Sam was back in a moment, fingers spreading wide against Dean's flanks, palms gliding over his hipbones, holding there, fingers curling in and around to match the dark, mottled prints left behind on Dean's pale skin; but Sam's hands were bigger, Dean realized in sudden bemusement. They were far more gentle and controlled, too, even though there was ten times the lethal power in them as had been the other guy's.

Dean felt Sam lean forward, close enough that the damp heat of his brother's breath against his bare back raised gooseflesh there. He tensed, waiting, muscles twitching under the weight of Sam's hands as he pulled them together to rest possessively in the dip of the small of Dean's back, framing a small patch just above the cleft of his ass with his fingers and thumbs.

'Never,' Sam breathed over Dean's skin. 'Never again.' 

Then Sam's lips were pressed, warm and soft, into that space he'd made. Right in the center. Just touching. Just barely. Something rocketed up Dean's spine, hot and hard and fast, exploding at the base of his skull like all the Fourth of Julys there had ever been all at one time. He was left with the capacity to do no more than moan his brother's name when Sam's hands moved lower, his thumbs dipping down, spreading Dean apart.

'No one touches you…' Sam said. Dean felt himself being pried open, felt Sam's eyes examining him at point blank range, taking in the swollen, chaffed, and abraded flesh of his abused hole, felt Sam's fury radiating in tiny pulses through his fingertips where they kneaded into the meat of Dean's ass. '…except me.'

Dean shuddered fiercely, and Sam's hands tightened momentarily. 'Sam, you can't…'

But at that moment, there didn't seem to be much Sam couldn't or wouldn't do. Dean had only a moment to catch his breath when Sam pulled back before it was punched out of him again by the feel of his long fingers, slicked up with ointment, dragging down the cleft of his ass, pads of his fingers brushing lightly over his stretched and puffy hole. Something white-hot and acidic spiked through Dean's bones, leaving his brain confused and short circuiting, nearly smoking with the effort to reconcile his brother's—his _brother's_ —searing touch with his own body's reaction. Because it _was_ reacting, against his every right impulse and better judgement, his cock was thickening and the syrupy warmth low in his belly was stirring into something hotter, more molten and dangerous to touch.

'Oh, fuck, Sam…please,' Dean begged on a weak puff of air.

Sam stroked over his hole again, with more intent and less accidental hesitation. 'Please, what, Dean?'

Dean just buried his face in the pillow and groaned as Sam lifted up and slung a leg across him, straddling the backs of Dean's thighs. He whined piteously when Sam paused his stroking to rest the pad of his middle finger against Dean's hole and press in just slightly, opening him the tiniest bit; and it was painful, so painful, but in the way that touching an over stimulated nerve would send shocky pulses of electric heat through his entire nervous system.

'Please stop this,' he forced out in a rush of air.

For a second, he thought Sam was actually going to do it, to leave him alone, to let him lay there and simmer with this heat bubbling low and insistent inside him. It had cost him everything he had left in his energy reserves to tell his brother to stop because this heat in him was a wanton thing that he could feel like venom creeping through his veins and numbing all his north facing inhibitions about taking pleasure, this kind of pleasure, from his brother's touch. 

Sam had other ideas, though. His fingers left for only a moment, enough to reach and come back, slathered with more cooling ointment, and rub again in smooth, soothing strokes against Dean's abused flesh, to press again at his swollen entrance and slip inside. Just a fraction. Just the tip of his finger, just enough to put some of the ointment where it was most needed, but the jittery shock of Sam's knuckle stretching him, however little, locked up all of Dean's muscles, and he felt a pulse of hot, thick damp between his belly and the sheets. His cock twitched hard in hunger, even as his mind screamed out in rebellion. 

'Fucking Christ, Sam,' he panted and tried to scoot up the bed, away from the pressure of that finger opening him up, away from the weight of Sam resting across his bare legs, away from the blindingly intense pleasure shooting across his synapses. 

Sam's free hand locked on his hip and held him. He froze. There was a moment of stillness, Dean breathing so shallow he was making himself lightheaded, and Sam sitting like a statue atop him, so quiet Dean could almost feel the thrum of his blood through his finger where it was still inside him. 

Then Sam withdrew. Slowly. Easing out like a lover would, with the utmost care and consciousness of how sore Dean's body was. 

They stayed still, predator and prey, locked in the moment before the final strike, until Sam started breathing so hard Dean could hear it puffing in and out of him like a train laboring up an incline, and his little brother's body started to tremble, setting up sympathetic vibrations all through Dean. Then Sam collapsed forward, limp and shaking, hot cheek pressed into the small of Dean's back, uneven breaths scorching across his hip where Sam's fingers were still curled, desperately now, hanging on, not holding captive. 

Sam settled his whole weight on Dean. It hurt, put pressure in places that weren't ready to take it yet, but Dean didn't move. Didn't dare. He could feel the thick, heavy line of Sam's cock pressed into the valley between his calves, hemmed in and held as they were by Sam's knees bracketing them, and it was doing things to him, things that Sam's finger against and inside him had only hinted at, only suggested, because that weighted heat that he could feel even through the tough denim of Sam's jeans was reciprocation, the other side of the equation, the thing that balanced all the backwards and turned around shit in Dean's head.

'Dean, I—' Sam's breathing was hiccupy and his hips were rocking into Dean's legs, tiny little moves that Dean doubted Sam even realized he was making. 'I. You can't.' He dragged in a breath, lungs expanding against the backs of Dean's thighs, holding, pressing down. 'Please don't ever do that again, Dean. You are worth so much more.'

Sam had always had a way of breaking off bits of Dean's heart. He swore that by the time he died, there would be nothing left of it, only a fractured speck of dust, because the kid was so lethal in so many small and unforeseeable ways, ways that got in under Dean's armor and through his thick skin and drove straight into his core like the certain path of a silver knife flung from Sam's sure and unerring grip. His words now were tiny upwellings of pain, so acute in nature that they came with tears Dean could feel dripping onto his skin, sliding down over the curve of his hip, leaving behind a cold and desolate trail. They slipped in under all Dean's defenses, completely unseen, and wound around his heart, cinching down until he could feel every painful slow beat and thought, maybe, just maybe, this would be the time it gave out, the time it couldn't stand up under the solar intensity of his little brother's love.

Dean swallowed, turned his head to the side, tried to see over his shoulder, but only the dark mop of Sam's floppy hair was visible above the horizon of his backbone. 'Ain't about that, Sammy,' he rasped out.

Sam shook his head a little, smearing hot tears against Dean's skin, fingers curling convulsively, gripping, holding. 'I know what it's about, and…you shouldn't.' He gulped a breath, murmured the next words like he was afraid of them. 'You shouldn't love me like that. You shouldn't love me that much.'

And that was the final straw, the truth laid bare. 

Sam knew now what lengths Dean had gone to for him, but worse than that, so much worse and more damaging, was why. Dean had fought long and hard to keep it from the kid, because knowledge like that could break a man. It did things to a person to know they were loved that much. That kind of love was destructive. It only ended one way. History and literature were littered with deaths at the hands of that kind of love. And the thing that made it all so tragic was that the lover invariably killed the object of his passion before succumbing to the flames himself. Dean had always meant to add his name to the list, but he had hoped, somehow, he could keep Sam safe from the fire.

Dean got up on his elbows, tugged his legs free from beneath his brother's weight. Sam whined pitifully and keened his objection, but Dean just rolled over, slowly, easing down on bruised flesh. He reached for Sam, threaded his fingers into his hair, cupped the back of his skull, and urged him upward. Sam came willingly, trembling all over, to fit himself full length to Dean's naked body.

He could still feel the kid's hard-on against the outside of his thigh, the heat of it burning him like a brand, like a claim of ownership, and Dean's own body answered in kind. Sam's breath rushed out of him in an awestruck gasp, and Dean knew he'd seen his brother's cock, long and hard and curved for him, saw plain as day the effect Sam had on him. He dug his fingers in against Sam's scalp, rubbing there, slow and sure, arm tightening slowly around his little brother's shoulders until he huffed a little in strangled protest. 

Dean breathed in deep. 

'The way I love you, Sammy? Someday it's gonna burn the world down,' Dean whispered against Sam's tousled, silken hair. 'But that's okay. That's okay with me.'

Dean gentled his grip, turned his head to rest his lips against the top of Sam's head, eyes clenched tight against the impossibility of this moment and the awesome fissure it was laying down before them if they decided to tread this path.

It would end in blood. Always ended in blood. 

 


End file.
